Startupbootcamp Africa has received over 1,000 applications for its Cape Town-based accelerator programme after spending three months on a cross-world journey to source the best startups.
The first-ever Startupbootcamp accelerator in Africa took place last year, and ended with startups signing 32 corporate agreements, including pilots and proof of concepts.
Applications for the second edition opened in February, with the Startupbootcamp team embarking on a tour scouting top-tier tech startups to join the three-month accelerator. In the end it hosted 19 FastTrack events in 15 countries across the globe.
By the end of the process, Startupbootcamp Africa had received 1,004 applications from five continents, 88 per cent of which came from Africa. In all, 38 per cent of the African applications came from West Africa, 32 per cent from Southern Africa, 25 per cent from East Africa, and six per cent from North Africa.
Startups from various industries applied, including e-commerce, fintech, software development, ed-tech, agri-tech and entertainment, while 12 per cent of the applicants were females.
“We’ve received an overwhelming number of applications this year into our programme, nearly double the 512 applications we received last year,” said Zachariah George, co-founder and chief investment officer of Startupbootcamp Africa.
“We saw a big increase in the quality of applications and also in the diversity of technological problems being solved, and companies with significantly more traction than what we saw last year.”
The Startupbootcamp Africa team are currently reviewing each of the 1,004 startup applicants in order to select 20 to join their final selection days next month in Cape Town. At the end of the two-day selection process, the top 10 startups that have been accepted into the final accelerator will be announced.
